One More Second of Summer
by Nicholas Scott
Summary: 5SOS fanfiction
1. Chapter 1: He Looks So Perfect

One More Second of Summer

Chapter One - He Looks So Perfect

POV Jack Montgomery

"Jack. I don't want you to go. Not yet." Luke grumbled, his fingers were grasping at the air in my direction, like a cat, clawing at the air, perfectly content after its tummy has been rubbed.

"Luke." I shook my head, sighing and ambled back. I squeaked as he pulled me down on top of him and we laughed into a kiss.. I knew this was going to happen. He made me weak.

I wasn't used to this; none of it, actually. I wasn't accustomed to guys falling for me, guys wanting me; being attracted to me.

Summer romances were the stuff of movies and girly romance novels. And the idea of falling in love was pure folly.

I hadn't planned on staying in Kennebunkport. I was working my way up the beach towns of New England. _Yankee Magazine_ had a list of the top 25 beach towns of New England and I was bound and determined to visit as many of them as possible before the end of summer. At least that was the plan at the beginning, but it turned out, Yankee magazine wasn't the hippest source for parties.

I started in Nantucket, hitting there just in time for the Nantucket Wine Festival. I didn't much like wine, but it was a festival and there's something to be said for a bunch of rich guys on the beach drunk on wine and life. I was only 18 and much like the majority of the beach crowd, we weren't able to get into the official parties unless we had access to IDs verifying we were over 21. There were plenty of seedy places to get fake IDs but truth be told, the real parties were on the beach. Impromptu parties sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain. It was crazy and just what I was hoping for.

After Nantucket I ended up at Bar Harbor for the food festival and then Mystic Seaport for Lobster Days. I didn't like wine, but I did love to eat. I swear I ate my weight in lobster and drank my weight in beer. I worked Memorial weekend on the shy for the Rotary Club and they paid me under the table. Plus it was all the lobster rolls, corn on the cob, and coleslaw I could eat. The beer I fetched on the beach afterwards around huge roaring fires bonfires and blaring music; coolers crammed with ice; the bottlenecks sticking out like frosty thorns.

I said I worked my way, and that was truth of it, in more ways the one. Summer season provided ample opportunity for work. All the parties and festivals, it was easy to find work, paid in cash at the end of the night. The first 5 weeks of summer had been one long party stretching across 6 states. It was wild. I was reckless. Once, I tagged along with a group of kids, racing headlong into the night to the next best party only to wake up on a deserted beach with a hangover and sand in my shorts.

Kennebunkport was supposed to be a one-night thing. Just earn enough money to tide me over until Rockport. Straight shot down highway 1.

I was working at one of the seasonal beach bars. It was sort kitschy, tikki lamps stabbed deep into the sand along with strings of blinking Christmas lights. The wait staff wore Hawaiin shirts and board shorts. The girls were spared the indignity of a Hawaiian shirt but instead wore bikinis that left practically nothing to the imagination. I bartered for a night's work, twenty bucks, whatever tips I could make and two lobster rolls. The owner tossed me the ugliest Hawaii shirt I'd ever seen; and the shorts weren't much better. I was grateful for the lack of mirrors.

"Where you from?" I looked up, surprised by the voice. He had an accent, and just looking at him you wouldn't think he would. His blond hair was a mess. He looked anonymous, like any number of beach bums coming off the beach after of long day of too much sun and probably a little too much drink. His smile was captivating and I had to look away.

"Huh?"

"Where you from?" He stepped closer and I could feel the day's sun rolling off of him in waves of heat.

My response was a smile. I thought it odd that he would be asking. His accent put him from Australia and I was just from a small out of the place town in the middle of Texas. I told him as much and he smiled.

"That far?"

"Not as far as you."

He nodded and took a long draw from his beer. He looked under age, younger than me, but drank brazenly, relishing it.

"What are you doing here?" Another question that would work better were I to have asked him instead of the other way around.

"Vacatiion. This is my official, party summer." He watched me pick up the empty bottles lining the bar, push in empty bar stools and brush a fair amount of peanut shells to the floor. "It's a pay as I go party summer."

He nodded again. His cheeks dimpled as he drank, one more so than the other, and his eyes sparkled. "What're you doin later?"

This time I laughed. Out loud. I didn't think I was that obvious. In Texas, it's best to hide the fact that you're gay, especially in those small out of the way towns.

Instead of answering I said, "You look familiar."

It was his turn to smile. "Really?" It was a knowing smile. I don't know if he'd heard it before, like a come-on. I certainly didn't mean it that way.

I'm from Texas. And while not everybody in Texas listens to country music, I did. So I didn't know. I didn't know if he believed me, at first, which explained that knowing grin. He leaned back against the bar and then looked over my shoulder. I turned, following his gaze. There was a crowd at a makeshift stage starting to chant.

"Have a drink with me after?"

I watched him for another second; to see if he was serious, then nodded slowly. He smiled, biting at his lip ring unconsciously. I wondered if it was a nervous habit, though I doubted he was shot down, very often, if at all.

He downed the last of his beer and stood abruptly, pulled up shorts that hung wondrously on tanned hipbones. I caught a glimpse of his belly button and the hint of abs as his shirt road up. He knocked sand from his flip-flops and headed straight for the boisterous crowd. I wanted to watch him, wanted to turn and follow him with my eyes but I felt him run a finger along my lower back that sent chills running up and down my spine. I nearly dropped everything.

When the music started, the girls went wild, and probably a few guys too, I glanced back and on stage he stood, microphone in hand. He was watching the crowd surging closer and closer to the stage like a tide. There were four on stage, three of them brandished guitars and he threw a curious grin back at the fourth, a drummer who bounced his head to the rhythm of the drums, his blond hair flying wildly. I recognized the music, and had heard the song before, but like I said, I was just a country boy for the most part so I couldn't tell you who sang the song. The surging crowd was apparently very familiar and sang along in a staccato fashion, their voices rising above the instruments blaring from the speakers, but his voice rang clearly.

He glanced over at me and winked, and for a moment I could feel his finger running across my back, just above the waistband of my underwear.


	2. Chapter 2 Don't Stop Doin' What You're D

One More Second of Summer

Chapter Two: Don't Stop….Doin' What You're Doin'

"So…. You're like somebody?"

I adored his smiling response. I don't know if it was because I didn't know who he was or because _he was glad_ I didn't know who he was. He just smiled, shrugging slightly. The dimple in his right cheek gave him a lopsided grin that was the most adorable thing I'd ever seen. Maybe it was the couple of shots I'd snagged from the bartender but I badly wanted to kiss him. He stepped closer and my eyes rounded and I stepped back, wondering if he was able to read my mind. He smiled again and pressed back against the bar. He nodded towards the stage. "Which one did you like best?"

"Huh?"

"Which song?"

"Oh. I dunno. I was working."

"I saw you watching."

I'm sure my blush painted me a brilliant red, even in the dark. ""Everybody was watching."

"So… which one?"

"Jack! We're getting killed here." It was like waking up abruptly, the sounds of the bar, bottles clinking, the carbonated shhhhh of opening cans, the shake and rattle of a bartender mixing a cocktail, the sounds rushed in like a crashing wave. I wiped absently at the bar, a feeble attempt to appear busy. I looked back at the owner of Surfside who shook his head then nodded towards the tables, all of which were cluttered with cups and beer bottles and trays of clamshells., and the carcasses of clams and lobsters.

I turned back but the band was starting up again on stage and the blond stood with his back to the crowd as he talked to the drummer.

The next hour was a torrent of noise. I enjoyed the music; the band's songs were mostly happy go lucky upbeat songs that I caught myself moving to as I cleared tables and raked the sand. The tide was surging and crashing on the shore 100 yards below Surfside and the wind had picked up. The crowd was getting rowdy and had continued to grow. A couple of police cruisers had pulled up further back along the beach, red and blue lights swirling and herd of teenage girls bounded out and submerged into the crowd.

He sang inelegantly. Not that it was bad, but he sang and laughed and played with the crowd, charming them perfectly and they cheered and swooned and grabbed at him desperately. I saw several hands holding up CDs and was almost embarrassed that I didn't know who they were.

Several of the more extroverted girls had been pulled out of the crowd and draped with emergency blankets, to cover up their sudden nudity. I'd always thought that panties on the stage was an urban myth, but I saw several fly up there, a pair hanging haphazardly on the microphone that he sang into. I couldn't help but laugh as his eyes swelled large and he threw me a quick glance.

After the band had performed a final encore, the crowd had dispersed, helped along by a fire marshal and several more police officers. The line of cars glowed off into the distance, horns blaring. The band was rushed into Surfside's kitchen. A fringe of fanatics waited beyond a makeshift perimeter, crying, squealing, and moving with a frenetic energy as the band was escorted to an idling limo. I watched them go, a moment to see him climb into the back of the limo without so much as a glance back, and then watched the red taillights disappear behind the manmade dunes.

Midnight was a crash of silence. The quiet weighed me down as I traipsed across the dark beach, the lapping tide cold on my bare feet. I looked back and Surfside was just a string of lights blinking in the distance and I knew everything would be easier if I just kept on walking. I shouldn't wait for him. I shouldn't hope he was going to show up. I shouldn't be weighed down by the oppressive silence.

"You owe me a drink." He panted, out of breath. He practically glowed in the moonlight as he bent, hands on his knees.

"How can you be out of breath?"

"I must have run past you. I don't know how far. They said you'd gone this way." He pointed away from Surfside towards the dark beach, breathing in deeply. "I couldn't find you." He slunk to the sand. "I gotta rest here."

"I thought you forgot."

"Is that why you're out here in the dark?"

"Maybe." He slapped the sand next to him, urging me to sit. "And for the record, you owe me a drink."

He lay back and stared up at the sky. "It's really strange."

"What?" I lay down next to him, holding my breath a little.

"The sky. The stars are all different here."

I nodded. "Well that, right there is the Big Dipper." I rolled closer to him and pointed at the constellation. "And that's the North…"

He reached up and pulled my hand down, holding it next to his side, between us. "No offense. But I don't want to talk about stars."

"You started i…."

His kiss was sudden and tasted like beer. He rolled tighter against me, kissing hungrily, his hands played across my back, in my hair, finally landing at the base of my neck where he held me as he kissed me. His other hand pulled urgently at my shirt, wanting it off of me. I obliged letting him pull it off. Then he was at my nipples, biting, licking, and sucking. I dug my toes into the cool sand and bit my lip to keep from moaning. I arched my back involuntarily, but as quickly as he started, he stopped.

I nearly yelled, bereft at the sudden lack of sensation. I was panting, having trouble catching my breath, my heart beating wildly. I grabbed at him, wanting the feel of him, his touch, his taste but he pulled further away.

"I shouldn't have done that." There was no conviction in his voice. His hand played along my chest, tentatively caressing my side, as if I were some dream that the touch made real.

I shook my head. The stars were blurry. I could still taste his kiss, could still feel his lips on me as he sat up.

He looked down at me. He started to speak, his lips forming words, but nothing came out. He shook his head, his eyes filled with frustration. "I shouldn't have done that." He grabbed a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers. "We're leaving tomorrow. This was just a promo stop. Not on the tour. " He threw the remaining grains of sand into the darkness. "We're in Sweden next week."

"When will you be…?"

"August." He stared blankly out at the water.

"Oh." That's all I could muster. I grabbed his hand and pulled him back down next to me. He landed on his elbow and propped his chin on my chest.

"Sweden?"

He nodded and stood abruptly. "I have to go. They're waiting for me." He gestured towards the beach bar.

I turned and looked, but saw nothing and no one. The lights of Surfside were off and I could see nothing but a subtle glow from town, beyond the dunes and tall sea grass.

"Walk me back?""

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Better not."

I didn't watch him leave, though I could hear him, the barest crunching of wet sand under his feet.

I had made almost a hundred dollars at Surfside and had arranged for a ride down to Bar Harbor. I could sleep here on the beach and wake in the morning and pretend it was all a dream. It would be easy. I didn't even know his name.


	3. Chapter 3 Amnesia

OMSOS chapter 3

" Jack? Come on. Jack, what are you looking at?"

I threw a glance over my shoulder. I'd been in Bar Harbor for over a month, much longer that I had planned, and had some how managed to make a friend of one of the girls that worked at Surfside. Her name was Sheena, but I had a tendency to call her Carrie due to her remarkable resemblance to Carrie Underwood. She'd acknowledge the resemblance with a mock hair flip but I could tell she was uncomfortable with compliments. "Hold up Carrie."

I turned back, staring through the window at the cover of a magazine. On it was the band from Surfside. He had grown his hair long and the photograph was in black and white, but I knew immediately that it was him.

Aside from the few occasions when I heard one of the songs and felt an overwhelming sense of dejà vu, I thought I had done a fairly good job of pretending the whole episode at Surfside was a dream.

Luke, that was his name, I was told the following morning by a what could essentially be called a groupie, who had lost her purse, not to mention a pair of frilly pink panties. She had stopped in at Surfside to inquire about lost objects and blushed when I asked her what she had lost; not so much the purse but the underwear. I dug through a tattered cardboard box labelled; 'LOST N FOUND,' that indeed had her underwear as well as a couple of others, one which still had the price tag on it.

"Oh my god, thank you so much." She scanned the contents of her purse, I assumed to check to make sure everything was still there. She tucked the panties down to the bottom.

"Do you like 5 Seconds of Summer?"

I looked at her like she'd asked me to wear her panties. "Huh?"

"The band."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess. They were pretty good."

She reacted as if I had spit on her. "Luke Hemmings is a god."

"Which one was he?"

"The singer. God, I'd so let him…"

"Yeah. I get it." _Not a chance, sweetie._

I pushed a rag across the bar and looked at my watch. "Sorry I have to get everything ready."

"I can't wait till August. They're going to be in New York. I've already got my tickets for Saratoga. And they're going to be on Good Morning America on the 21st."

I hate to admit I contemplated changing my plans, instead of beach hopping, maybe I'd take a short trip to New York. I tried to imagine a map of New York, imagine where Saratoga was on that map. I shook my head and the girl looked at me like I wanted to sell her first born (who most assuredly, she thought, would be born of a union between her and Luke.) I cleared my throat and looked at my watch again.

"I really have to…"

"I can't _wait_ for their new album." Her voice was starting to grate on my nerves. The pitch would make dogs flinch. And I noticed she had a lazy eye, like she was keeping one eye on me and the other was on look out Luke.

"Seriously, I hafta…"  
"Jack!" The owner glared at me, though I noted the tiniest grin on his face.

"Sorry. Gotta go." I shrugged apologetically, while silently giving thanks.

I rushed over to the owner who continued to glare until she left.

"You're welcome!" His grin broke through and bespoke his intentions. "I hate that type. She's gonna wind up pregnant and pining away for someone who won't remember her name, if he gets it at all."

I played at wiping the counter top and stared off as his words trickled through my mind.

"Jack. You seem a little off today." Sheena peered into the window. It was filled with knickknacks and t-shirts, most of it probably made overseas. A few had tags declaring they were 'Made in the USA' but it was folk art carvings and jars of fresh preserves and jellies made by local farmers. A rainbow of scented candles, one flickering, lined the top of a rolling buffet and I could barely discern an apple cinnamon aroma.

The attendant peered up from her magazine and smiled, a smile that didn't reach her eyes. I gave her a similar smile then looked at Sheena. "Let's go in."

"Really?"

I raised my eyebrows in response and pulled on the door, hearing the quaint tell tale jingle of a bell. The attendant smiled again and put the magazine down.

We made a quick circuit of the shop, giving the wares cursory glances. I just wanted to look at the magazine cover again so I went up to the counter with a bottle of Maine maple syrup. The girl behind the counter put the magazine down again and fashioned another smile.

The cover photo captivated me to the extent that I nearly knocked a Maine snow-globe off the counter. "Oh shit, sorry." I pointed at the magazine. "Where can I get magazines around here?"

"She looked down at the magazine. "Oh this one, I got in Augusta."

I shook my head. I didn't know where that was.

"It's about two hours from here."

I slumped my shoulders.

"They have a magazine rack at the grocery store, but…" The girl wrinkled her nose. "They don't have any good magazines. I got this at Barnes & Nobles."

I looked over my shoulder. Sheena was reading greeting cards on a spinner rack at the back of the store.

"I'll give you twenty bucks for that one." I pleaded in a hushed tone.

She smiled, this time her eyes lighting up though distant in thought. "You know; I saw them at a concert at this pop up bar on the beach called the Surfside. They had a secret concert." She had a knowing smile and nodded towards the cover. "What was he like?"

"Huh? What do you mean."

She wasn't buying my act.

I shrugged. "I didn't really get to talk to him that much. Just a passing hello. He's got a cool accent."

She nodded and waited for more, as if she _knew_ there was more, but I wasn't about to tell her what that more entailed.

"I'd never even heard of them. I don't really listen to that much music."

She stared, aghast, like she smelled something bad.

"I mean I do, but I've been on vacation and I don't know what stations to listen to and I forgot my charger and…" I looked at the magazine again. "Forty bucks."

She grinned. "And the maple syrup. If my boss found out I didn't…"

"Fine." I dug out my wallet and threw three twenties on the counter.

"She folded up two of the twenties and pushed them deep into her pocket then rang up the syrup.

"What'd you get?" She propped her chin on my shoulder.

"Just some maple syrup for my mom."

"Aww. You're such a good boy." She petted the top of my head and I turned away from the smirking counter girl.

"I'm hungry. We passed an ice cream shop…"  
"They have good ice cream."

My cottage; a single room shack with a window, high up on the wall, more for lighting than for a view, had a narrow door which opened into a little room filled by a twin sized bed that left little room for anything else. The shack sat just off the beach up past the sand dunes. Most of the cottages had been retired and figuratively boarded up as the season was pretty much over, but I was able to persuade my landlord, for lack of a better word, to stay on the beach a little longer.

I was lying on the bed and reading the magazine, again. The article was informative, describing the work on their second album and how they didn't view themselves as a boy band, apparently a pejorative term in the music industry. If I must tell the truth, I was only rereading it for the photos of Luke and it was a quite the chore to concentrate on the words without my eyes straying back to the photos. He looked much changed, not so much aged but matured in his appearance, growing into his features. I was enamored with his jaw line and his hair, longer and messy. I imagined running my hands through it. I recalled the feel of his lips, full and in my imaginings, pouty, though in the photographs they weren't. Our moment on the beach was as vivid as any recollection I could recall. The taste of his kiss, of his warm flesh pressed against mine left me sighing and wistful. The notion of New York, of showing up unannounced at his concert played through my mind like an extended gif in which a great deal of passionate kissing was involved.

I tossed the magazine on the floor, disgusted with myself. I had morphed into a 13-year-old girl. Still I couldn't help but grin; a grin I fought, not so valiantly. I needed to move on. Staying in Bar Harbor for a month was not part of the plan. And summer was unofficially over. I had wasted the summer away in a melancholic stupor. I looked around the shack. My backpack sat in one corner, crammed full of dirty clothes. I should laundry my clothes, repack and be on my way. I could have bought a bus ticket to Kennebunkport but found myself short about 40 dollars.

I had told the powers that be at Surfside that I was on my way, but that was three weeks ago. My boss had told me okay but had a look in his eye as he said it; he'd heard it all before. I showed up the next morning, he greeted me with that smile and threw a wet towel and nodded towards the tables. They didn't need cleaning and he really didn't need the help but he kept paying me under the table every night.

"He takes in lost puppies." Sheena watched me.

I shook my head. "I'm not a lost puppy. I'm on vacation."

Sheena wasn't even buying that story any longer. "Uh huh."

"What? I am."

"Maybe so. But you were supposed to be gone. A long time ago."

"I got sidetracked."

"Apparently. And what got you _sidetracked_?" She did the little rabbit ears.

I shrugged my shoulders. _A boy._ "I dunno." I told myself I wasn't ready to go home. I told myself summer wasn't over. I told myself I was having too much fun. In a phone call to my mother, I told her the same thing. And when she asked me what was wrong, I told her everything was fine. I told her I'd be home by the end of September. The truth was, in the back of my mind, somewhere deep and buried, I'd hoped he would show up one day out of the blue. August had come and gone, but Luke had not.

"Helloooooo."

"Huh?"

She was still watching me.

"I said we should take a road trip. Get you back on track."

"Really."

"Yeah. It'd be fun. Surfside's closing next week anyway."

I did a double take. "Really?"

"Yeah, He always closes after Labor Day."

"He'll probably give you as many hours as you want since so many people have already left. We'll have plenty of money. We'll gas up and be on our way, Tuesday morning. Anywhere you wanna go."

"New York?"


End file.
